Local tailor, World War II heroine dies

Jim Thompson @Jimtnwfdn

Tuesday

Mar 26, 2019 at 3:43 PMMar 26, 2019 at 3:45 PM

NICEVILLE — Josephine Britt, who at her own insistence was known as "everybody's grandma," died Thursday at the age of 95, closing out a life that included heroic assistance to American POWs in her native Philippines during World War II.

But the affectionate nickname was more than a reflection of Britt's age, Austermann said. It was a recognition of her role in the community.

"She was the consoler of soldiers," Austermann said.

Beginning in 1966, Britt operated Jo's Tailor Shop in Valparaiso just outside the east gate of Eglin Air Force Base. Over the years — in fact, until just a couple of months before her death — Britt sewed thousands of rank patches on airmen's uniforms, hemmed their pants and did other alterations.

More importantly, she became a listening ear for airmen and soldiers in the area, some of whom would simply drop in to talk with her.

They could open up to her mother because "she would know what it's like going through a war," Austermann said.

"One time I went in to her shop, and there was a soldier kneeling at her sewing machine," Austermann remembered. "He was a survivor of the Khobar Towers." The towers were a housing complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, hit by a truck bomb in June 1996. Among the dead were 12 airmen from Eglin's 33rd Fighter Wing.

"She was a special woman," Austermann said. "She did not want to retire. She said, 'I have to be there for my customers.' "

In addition to her role as a consoler of grieving and troubled soldiers, Britt also was known as "the storyteller," Austermann said. That name came from her willingness to share the story of her harrowing experiences in World War II, when she risked her life to help American POWs.

“I like to talk to people,” Britt said during a 2017 Daily News interview. “I like to share my story.”

In 1941, Britt was 18 years old and living in the town of San Fernando in the Philippines when the Japanese invaded and began a brutal occupation of the Pacific island nation. American POWs were held in San Fernando and suffered from a lack of food and medicine to treat tropical diseases.

One day, Britt — whose father had served in the U.S. Navy — saw an emaciated POW and felt pity for him. She hid some fruit in the grass nearby, and later found a bottle near the spot with a message inside saying the POWs were desperate for food and medicine.

With the help of her father, Teodoro Salanga, Britt obtained medicine and vitamins from a local doctor. She and her younger brother smuggled the items and food to the Americans. Britt would distract the Japanese guards when the POWs came to town, and her brother would slip food and medicine to them.

But as the Japanese occupation became unbearable, the family was forced to flee their hometown.

One of the American POW survivors, a young man named Sigmond Laskowski, would eventually return to the Philippines and elope with Britt. (She remarried in 1975, after Laskowski's death, and was widowed a second time).

The couple moved to the United States in 1948, and Britt became an American citizen in 1951. They had two children and eventually settled in Northwest Florida when Laskowski was assigned to Eglin in 1957. The story of the American POWs' travails would become tightly woven into the fabric of Britt's family, as she raised her children to be 100 percent American. "She never taught me the language (of the Phillipines). She never taught me the cooking," Austermann remembered. "She said, 'You will be an American.' "

After Britt opened her tailor shop, it became a touchstone for the community.

"People would come — and bring their children — to the shop just to hear her story," Austermann said.

People might also have heard the story at Britt's restaurant — Jo's Lumpia Hut, which she operated for years along with the tailor shop. Lumpia is a savory spring roll commonly found in the Phillipines, and even now, years after that business closed, people still ask about her mother's lumpia, Austermann said.

Britt was being remembered fondly beyond her family this week as her funeral services approach. John Griffin, a longtime family friend, called her "a kind, generous person." In the days she was operating her lumpia business, she would take leftovers to one of his relatives "because she knew he needed them," Griffin said.

And "up until the last few months, she was still wanting to put in a full day's work," he marveled.

"She just was wearing out," Austermann said.

For now, the tailor shop is closed until the family decides what its future will be, Austermann said.